Abstract:
Resource-limited farmers slaughter goats without stunning. The objective of the current
study was to assess the influence of indigenous slaughter methods used by resource-limited households
on slaughter stress-related behaviour, bleeding e ciency, and time to post-slaughter trauma of goats.
Thirty clinically healthy castrated Nguni goats aged between 15 to 18 months old with body
condition score of three were randomly assigned to three non-stunning informal slaughter methods,
(1) transverse neck incision (TNI); (2) suprasternal notch piercing in the direction of the heart
(SNP); and (3) under-shoulder-blade chest-floor point-of-elbow (CFP) sticking in the direction of the
heart. Ten goats were slaughtered using each method. Slaughter method had no e ect (p < 0.05)
on stress-related behaviour. Rate of bleeding e ciency was highest (p < 0.05) for SNP slaughtered
goats. Time to lose sensibility was lowest (p < 0.05) for goats slaughtered using the CFP (55 s) when
compared to SNP (68 s) and TNI (75 s) slaughter methods. Time to post-slaughter trauma was highest
(p < 0.05) for SNP (247 s) and lowest for TNI (195 s). These findings suggest that goats slaughtered
with SNP experienced rapid death when compared to TNI and SNP slaughter methods. It was
concluded that the SNP slaughter method is the most e ective slaughter technique because it is
associated with higher bleeding e ciency and lower time to lose sensibility before death.
